Contents

Solo missions

The vast majority of the competition revolves around obtaining the best times for the 63 single-player missions (21 missions, on each of the Agent, Special Agent and Perfect Agent difficulty settings). The current PD world champion is Takuya Kakizawa (aka CEDRIC), who holds 22 of the game's 63 World Records (6 of which are untied).

Full runs

Complete single-segment speed runs through Perfect Dark have also been attempted. They are ranked here alongside similar records for GoldenEye 007. There are six categories for these: runs can be through Agent, Special Agent or Perfect Agent and each of these can be timed using the in-game timer or in real time. Typically the last four (bonus) levels are not attempted here as the game goes to the credits once you beat Skedar, so only 17 levels need beating.

Strategies in full runs are different from individual level runs because you don't have the luxury of multiple attempts (multiple attempts are allowed, but the time just keeps adding on). Swift but safe strategies are preferable to one-in-a-thousand shots - with the exception of Defection, which you can attempt over and over again. In some senses, full runs provide a better judge of consistent playing ability and global game knowledge.

Strategies change even more significantly in real-timed runs. For example, delaying your exit from the opening cinematic is pointless as the clock is still running, and using Combat Boosts wastes huge amounts of time instead of saving any. Also, choosing where to exit levels becomes a factor because this affects where you start the next level. (Mainly this affects Crash Site.)

You can find out your own best segmented A, SA and PA runs through Perfect Dark simply by adding up your individual times for the relevant levels, as this is precisely what a segmented run is. The best segmented runs are as follows (here, we do consider all 17+4 levels):